5964. NOT NICKEL SPIT

NOT NICKEL SPIT

It wasn't nickel spit my guy had on him, it was the

horse manure shadow of death itself. Pale Rider,

in the Ryder vein. Death on a Pale Horse. The

Race Track  -  all that dark, delirious New York

City stuff from the turn of the last century : Novembers

of the soul, as Melville might have put it. Albert Pinkham

Ryder, the guy I mean. Waldo Crane. Hart Franks. 

The whole mess.

-

I have nothing myself to carry as a corpse  -  I walk the

faint demise and talk to that character in the old Newark 

church; some young, talky guy from Chelsea, who'd moved

instead to take care of the bell tower there at the church. The

very oldest spot in Newark too, though nobody knows the

difference or gives a flying shit anymore. Everything's over.

This life's a whore.

-

The whole entire world would say all things are falling away.

Nothing but nickel spit will save the day. The whole mess.

This life's a whore.